"Is that you, Shasta?"
"Oogh! Sh-e-asta!"
"All right! I am waiting for you."
The hand closed upon his right arm; he was lifted bodily as if he were an infant, and held in mid-air; and the next instant the Pah Utah dropped lightly to the earth, and the two stood upon their feet. The Indian uttered an exclamation which seemed to be one of inquiry, and the boy made answer in this manner:
"I am ready for anything, Shasta; lead the way."
Instead of allowing him to walk, as Elwood confidently expected, the Pah Utah flung him over his shoulder and then started on a long, loping trot up the path. His extraordinary agility and muscular power made the weight he carried of the same effect as if it were his rifle he was thus transporting.
This rapid progress continued but a few minutes, when he sunk into a walk—one of long strides, such as would have compelled the boy to a moderate run to equal. He could tell that he was going up quite an ascent, but toward what point it was impossible to tell. Occasionally his hand or his foot struck the projecting rocks, and the rush of the wind now and then against his face told when they were passing through the more open space.
Wonderful indeed was the skill of the Pah Utah, that in the dense darkness showed him, just where and just the outlay of strength that would land his young white friend upon the shelf of safety. Equally extraordinary was the woodcraft that brought him back to the precise spot, and enabled him to thread his way through the impenetrable gloom with the surety of the mountain chamois, which bounds over the fastnesses of the Alps at midday.
Elwood was quiescent, for he know whose hand held him upon those brawny shoulders, and he felt that the moccasined foot which touched the earth so lightly was too sure to miss its hold, and the heart throbbing within that dusky bosom pulsated too powerfully with the common humanity of our nature ever to falter or hesitate in its work of love.
This singular means of progress was continued for the better part of an hour, when the Indian paused and placed him gently on his feet. The sky, which had partially cleared, enabled him to see that they had emerged from the ridge of hills whose entrance had been so eventful to him, and they now stood in the open woods.